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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

Satellite measurements of warming in the troposphere

What the science says...

The most recent satellite data show that the earth as a whole is warming.

Climate Myth...

Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
"Satellite measurements indicate an absence of significant global warming since 1979, the very period that human carbon dioxide emissions have been increasing rapidly. The satellite data signal not only the absence of substantial human-induced warming but also provide an empirical test of the greenhouse hypothesis - a test that the hypothesis fails." (Bob Carter)

John Christy and Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama published a series of papers starting about 1990 that implied the troposphere was warming at a much slower rate than the surface temperature record and climate models indicated Spencer and Christy (1992). One early version of their data even showed a cooling trend (Christy et al. 1995).

Several groups of scientists began looking closely at this discrepancy. With so many other pieces of evidence indicating warming, it seemed unlikely that the troposphere would not be warming. Errors were discovered in the methods the UAH group used to adjust the data.

To understand what was wrong: The satellites must pass over the same spot on Earth at the same time each day to get a temperature average. In reality the time the satellite passes drifts slightly as the orbit slowly decays. To compensate for this and other orbital changes a series of adjustments must be applied to the data.

The MSU satellite data is collected from a number of satellites orbiting & providing daily coverage of some 80% of the Earth's surface. Each day the orbits shift and 100% coverage is achieved every 3-4 days. The microwave sensors on the satellites do not directly measure temperature, but rather radiation given off by oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere. The intensity of this radiation is directly proportional to the temperature of the air and is therefore used to estimate global temperatures.

There are also differences between the sensors that were onboard each satellite and merging this data to one continuous record is not easily done. It was nearly 13 years after the orginal papers that the adjustments that Christy and Spencer originally applied were found to be incorrect. Mears et al. (2003) and Mears et al. (2005).

When the correct adjustments to the data were applied the data matched much more closely the trends expected by climate models. It was also more consistent with the historical record of troposphere temperatures obtained from weather balloons. As better methods to adjust for biases in instruments and orbital changes have been developed, the differences between the surface temperature record and the troposphere have steadily decreased.

At least two other groups keep track of the tropospheric temperature using satellites and they all now show warming in the troposphere that is consistent with the surface temperature record. Furthermore data also shows now that the stratosphere is cooling as predicted by the physics.

All three groups measuring temperatures of the troposphere show a warming trend. The U.S. Climate Change Science Program produced a study (pdf) in April 2006 on this topic. Lead authors included John Christy of UAH and Ben Santer of Lawrence Livermore National Labs. The first page has this quote:

Previously reported discrepancies between the amount of warming near the surface and higher in the atmosphere have been used to challenge the reliability of climate models and the reality of human-induced global warming... This significant discrepancy no longer exists because errors in the satellite and radiosonde data have been identified and corrected. New data sets have also been developed that do not show such discrepancies."

There are still some discrepancies between satellite measured temperatures in the tropics and those measured by radiosondes. Most researchers believe this difference is likely due to instrument errors.

The original discrepancy is an excellent example of how science works and of critical thinking. With many different indicators showing warming, it did not make sense that the troposphere would be cooling. This discrepancy was taken very seriously by the scientific community, and the consistency and accuracy of all relevant data were examined intensely.

Science advances by trial and error. The result is an increased knowledge of how to measure the temperature of the troposphere from space.

Further reading

Scott Church has written an extraordinarily detailed and thorough (137 page) article Climate Change & Tropospheric Temperature Trends that goes into all the technical nitty gritty of satellite and radiosonde data. Not for the faint hearted.

A more readable and succinct summary of the whole satellite data situation is found in Tamino's MSU.

Where Bob Carter got his data

When I emailed Bob Carter querying about his data in the article above, this was his reply (28 Jun 2007):

"By mistake the graph that was reproduced in the Telegraph article was for the middle troposphere. Though it does not materially affect the argument or conclusions, I am embarrassed by it because it can be made to look as if I was pulling a swiftie - which I wasn't (intending to)."

I'll take Carter at his word that it was an honest mistake, although I've noticed he continues to state satellites show little to no tropospheric warming.

Comments

John, note that Christy (with Spencer) pulled a bait and switch on his CCSP report co-authors after they'd gone to all that trouble avoiding trashing his work in the report. I don't think they were amused. Also FYI, Roy Spencer has become Rush Limbaugh's in-house climatologist.

The current UAH satellite numerical data (lower atmospheric temperature differences from the 1979 thru 1998 average) is at http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt .
According to this data, the AVERAGE GLOBAL TEMPERATURE for the first 8 months of 2008 is LOWER than the average from 2000 thru 2007 by an amount equal to 46.7% of the total linearized increase (NOAA data) during the 20th century. Since 2000, the CARBON DIOXIDE LEVEL HAS INCREASED by 13.6% of the total increase since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Looking at a graph generated from the Global data column it appears to trundle along with more or less equal + and - shifts until 1998 when there is a large rise of around +0.5C which declines to zero (2000)
From then on there is a further large rise peaking in 2005 at +0.3C and then falling back to +0.1C

From 1998 on the graph seems to include two events which have pushed the GMT well above mean.
The CO2 record shows a ggod correlation to GMT fluctuations AND a spike in 1998 and subsequent spikes at the 'right' places...but the scale effect is wrong.
1998 shows +0.5C when the CO2 rise was 1.0ppm (97-98)
Later CO2 increases of the same magnitude are not matched by similar Temp rises.
It seems some other factors are at work..??

Have just graphed CO2 and GMT records from 1978 to 2007.
By using the year on year change in CO2 plotted against GMT yearly change you get a remarkable match...
I then factored the CO2 to get the 1998 peaks to align and then ALMOST ALL the peaks/troughs from 1978 onwards line up.
Unfortunately can't find a way to put the graph on here!
But you can always do it yourself ( unless someone tells me how to post it)

Doesn't it bother you, that every bit of new evidence that comes along that goes against the 'global human warming trend', is routinely dismissed with further 'data corrections'. Doesn't human bias mean anything to you?

As soon as anyone starts making corrections, you can pretty much guarantee that such data becomes contaminated by human bias. Historians know this. Medical researchers know this. No mention of such here. Unbelievably naive.

Karl Marx in the 19th century scoffed at the idea that factory managers running the economy would be even tempted to corrupt data, or distort process, or exploit the system or the workers. He also said the 'state' would wither away under such a system (note: it got bigger). Christians think everything in the New Testament, after hundreds of years of 'corrections' to the concoted manuscripts, accurately reflects what occurred in the 1st century.

What a load of mumbo jumbo. I wouldn't trust these 'corrections' with a ten foot pole, and I don't know how someone could be so naive as to think that academic/ bureaucrats can be trusted with such numerous 'corrections'.

'What the science says'. Communists would have said 'what the Party/Stalin/Our dear Leader says', christians would say 'what the bible says' (even when it doesn't), and this website claims corrections that support global warming by humans is 'what the "science" says'. Or is it what a few academic /bureaucrats want it to say?

According to the discussion above, corrections by RSS had to be done twice (once by people 'within' RSS, once by RSS-what is the difference??), to get the desired result. This is known as a) cooking and b) re-cooking the cooking. Isn't one cooking enough? What a joke. I'm sure Stalin would have only needed one cooking, or the cookers above would have all been Gulaged.

If there really was issues with splicing and diurnal drifts etc, then discrepancies should go both ways. They don't-they nearly always get cooked upwards. If you cook the data long enough, you get chocolate coated global warming.

A telling statement concludes at the end "this error is most likely due to data errors", referring to discrepancies between satellite measurements and model predictions in the tropics. There are at least 3 errors and/or bias evident in this statement.
1) it is not an 'error', it is a difference between a model and a prediction, to say it is an error is to assume the data is wrong, not the model. The statements preceeding it say no such thing, they say the issue is still open, NOT that there is an error.You have pre-assumed a conclusion, and it is therefore a distorted statement.
2)The statements previous to this do not say 'it is most likely due to data errors', you yourself have concluded and enhanced this, from the previous paragraphs, and you are also asserting it is what John Christy etc says-he simply says 'the issue is still open', and doesnt mention anything about 'likelihood'-you have added this yourself. This is what is known as cooking and re-cooking, to get a desired result. If the same was done to the data, it would be invalid.
3) And also, you have repeated the word 'error' twice in this sentence, just to re-cook it, again. You have preassumed a conclusion, and cooked the statement twice. Stalin would not have been impressed, and would have advised that one cooking would have sufficed, or the GULAG.

Then again, with this naivety, I could always send this website details of how they have access to millions of dollars in Nigerian oil money...

Thingadonta: Frankly, your post gets closer to Truth than anything else I've read here. It is a history proven fact that humans, are...well human...and will do much to dig-in on a vested position to avoid 1) loss of credibility, 2) loss of real or perceived power, and the age old 3) loss of $$ (i.e funding).

Real science has *never* been based on consensus -- it has been driven by those that are usually well outside the consensus. Otherwise, we'd all believe that the earth was the center of our universe.

The lack of real, public debate on what may be the most important issue of our time does not exist. That is frightening.

This is a discussion by David Evans of the radiosonde data 1879-1999 which appears to show that there is no tropical hotspot. Since a tropical hotspot is a feature of the positive feedback due to water vapour, assumed by IPCC models, is this not a clear disproof of predictions of significant AGW?

This just got used by someone in a Deltoid thread, claiming it's the state of contemporary science:

http://spacescience.spaceref.com/newhome/headlines/essd06oct97_1.htm

The page begins:
Accurate "Thermometers" in Space
The State of Climate Measurement Science

October 2, 1997

Just how accurate are space-based measurements of the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere? In a recent edition of Nature, scientists Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and Dr. Roy Spencer of NASA/Marshall describe in detail just how reliable these measurements are....

Suppose that the tropospheric warming relative to the surface warming were less than the models predict.

Won't that end up making the climate sensitivity bigger, not smaller?

The troposphere is where heat is radiated back into space, so if it's responding less than expected to a forcing, then the result is less heat radiated from the earth = more heat retained = more temperature increase?

Re #15 suckfish, what matters is the distribution of the tropospheric warming. If it is concentrated then there will be more radiated heat and less retained. If it is diffuse then less radiated and more retained. The average increase or decrease doesn't tell us that and is not as important.

Did it include increased rates of evaporation (due to surface warmth) and consequently of condensation/precipitation ("Water cycle"). Water molecules absorb sensible energy at the surface when they evaporate, and re-release that energy at whatever tropospheric height when they re-condense. That is, intensification of the water cycle results in energy "bypassing" tropospheric greenhouse gases as it departs earth.

(Also, surface layers of ocean are now rather less opaque than previously thought (lower densities of phytoplankton), then insolation is penetrating to greater depths. This would tend to decrease surface temperatures because energy is not being absorbed at surface.)

If anyone's interested, the amsutemps applet at uah.edu is up and running again, although it looks like Dr. Spencer hasn't yet had time to update the numbers with the days since the tornadoes (or perhaps that will run automatically with the next day's updates).

It is not within my sphere of expertise to post a formal rebuttal, but I note two telling points:
1) It is an opinion piece, an article, not a peer-reviewed scientific paper;
2) Note the provenance: it was published in ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT VOLUME 22 No. 4 2011, which is an organ of the fossil fuel industry, not a scientific journal.

So, the article fails the test of credibility right at the outset. Prudence dictates it should be regarded as a suspect source unless and until it is published in the formal scientific manner.

I note that Singer has authored work which has been debunked here and elsewhere, but I am not dismissing this article on that ground.

scienceteacher, you refer to CCSP modeling being an artifact, but actually Singer's claim is that Santer et al 2008's finding of consistency between modelled and observed results is "an artifact"... CCSP 2006 is mentioned in that section only as sharing some of the same authors as the Santer study.

Singer makes a number of claims about the Santer study, but the primary one is that the modeled results do not match UAH satellite observations. This is essentially the same song and dance we've been hearing from Spencer & Christy (the developers of the UAH record) and debunked here.

Finally, his history should be considered. This is Fred Singer. Name a major instance of 'scientific' denial in the past 40 years and he has been part of it. Tobacco doesn't cause cancer, asbestos is safe, acid rain doesn't exist, there is no danger from ozone depletion, et cetera... he was involved in all of them. No, his track record does not prove that he is wrong about AGW too... but it certainly shouldn't inspire confidence.

Roy Spencer's latest claim that the tropospheric temperature proves the models wrong, has been aptly shot full of holes by Glenn Tamblyn and others. For example, Spencer compared temperature observations from only the tropics, to model results between 20 and 20 latitudes. Spencer compared model results for the surface, to observations of the "middle troposphere." Spencer's observations of the "middle troposphere" actually are 1/4 from the stratosphere, which of course cools as a consequence of increased greenhouse gases.

The question WHY the trend line was from 1982 to ~2009 intrigues me because it is said that climatology deals in 30 year intervals or more. So 1979 to 2009 would be a "better" line. But it looks like the chart would show nearly the same result.

knaugle - The reason for starting in 1982 was the 60-month averaging Spencer used, which leads directly to some of the distortions in the graphing. The satellite temps are more sensitive (higher swings) to ENSO and yearly variation than the surface temperatures, and the 5-year average for 1982 (1979-1984) is one of the highest peaks above trend for the UAH record.

'Baselining' to a single point of the 60-month average, as Spencer did, gives an artificial negative offset to the UAH record, as below:

Blue: HadCRUT4 60 month average, Red: UAH 60 month average baselined to the common average 1980-1999, and Green: UAH using Spencers 60-month average and a single point (mis)alignment.

As you can clearly see, the 60-month UAH alignment shifts the entire record down, artificially offsetting the satellite temps and making surface and model temperatures seem much higher. When in reality UAH swings both above and below the surface temps, as per the graphs baselined for comparison over a period longer than their internal variability.

I don't know whether Drs Spencer and Christy did this alignment out of an error of confirmation bias or as a deliberate 'trick', but either way the graphs they presented with that 60-month baselining are deceptive.

knauble - Here's the same graph along with trends, and you can clearly see that the 60-month single point offset Spencer/Christy used results in the UAH trend sharing no common period with HadCRUT4 whatsoever.

If trends don't cross in the baseline period, you cannot reasonably judge any divergence - this is a clear error on their part. And quite deceptive when their claim is that similarly baselined models are running too high - as they've artificially introduced an offset.

I hope I can get some help understanding the conflict in RSS TLT data.

The satellite data from RSS seems to fall well below all 33 IPCC data models for Temperature Lower Troposphere (TLT). As can be observed below. The thick Black line is the averaged RSS satellite data and the light blue lines are the 33 IPCC (TLT) models.

I understand SKS has the Troposphere graph but I would expect the RSS Green line to be well under the Direct Measurement models. As is shown in the RSS website graph above.

The actual response from RSS doesn't seem to nail the exact problem of the lack of correlation.

Rob - the plot is indeed of the lower troposphere, and it was created by Carl Mears. See here. So it is genuine.

Some of the issues are that:

1. The CMIP5 collection of climate model simulations use observations up to 2005 and projected forcings thereafter.

2. Recent observations indicate that the greenhouse gas forcing in the 21st century was smaller mainly due to increased light-blocking volcanic sulfates and a weaker-than-expected solar cycle.

3. Climate models cannot accurately predict the timing of natural variation, especially the multidecadal variation associated with the warm and cool phases of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). The IPO has been negative (cool surface temps) since 1999/2000 even though the ocean has been soaking up heat. The strong warming of the subsurface ocean is a testament to this.

So the issues are the same as surface temperature observation versus naive projections of the near-future forcings. When these are accounted for, the climate models are seen to be doing a very good job of simulating recent surface temperatures - within their obvious limitations.

Clearly RSS has some additional problems, as UAH and the surface temperature data sets are broadly in agreement, even though they are not measuring the same thing (radiative brightness of oxygen in the lower atmosphere vs surface temperature measured by thermometers).

The lines drawn on the graph exclude initial data that would appear to produce a flatter interpretation. The second point is that if you are arguing for a linear increase, it suggests a problem trying to correlate against CO2 increase which is non linear.

Regarding your second comment, in point of fact temperature increase is linear with logarithmically increasing CO2: climate sensitivity, you may recall, measures global mean surface temperature increase per doubling of atmospheric concentration of CO2.

ginunn - Also note that CO2 is not the only driver of climate. Nobody with even a basic understanding of the science would argue for a simple monotonic linear increase in temperatures in the presence of multiple forcings and internal climate variation.

Thank you all so much for the feedback. A lot of great information. I particularly like the moving graphic on surface temperature.This is proving to be a VERY complex issue to get my head around. It has struck me that I may be comparing apples with oranges.

The SkS graphic is specifically comparing Surface and Satellite temperatures. Three sets of data are being compared. 'Direct Surface Measurements' (Blue Line) and two sets of Satellite(?) data from UAH (Red Line) and RSS (Green Line). In respect to 'Surface Temperature' and I presume once certain adjustments are made they show a very close correlation.

My limited understanding is that if I take a temperature measurement at a ship on the Pacific Ocean (Surface Temperature) then fly up to the Lower Troposphere some 8 to 15 Klms above my position the Temperature measurement will be cooler.

So can I compare Carl Mear's graph of Temperature Lower Troposphere with a graph based on Surface Temperature data?

UAH has apparently completed a reivew of their methods and data, and re-written their software. Their new calculations seem to indicate a lower warming trend than they had been reporting. I don't know enough math or physics to make sense of their recent claims. Can someone comment?

Spencer's post does not link to any peer reviewed paper. Will they submit it for review? The blog post is written in the style of a scientific paper. I wonder if they have allowed anyone to look over their new mothods to find errors or if they will wait for others to find them later. In the past other scientists have found major errors in UAH data processing. Most of those errors have caused the trend to be falsely low.

The surface record does not have a history of making major adjustments to the data like the atmosphere data do. It is more reliable.

Thank you, Michael. I know that the people at UAH have had a lot of trouble, and have a history of unreliable calculations, as this article shows. I suspect the contrarian crowd are about to seize on the latest UAH numbers, and I’m hoping to have some responses I can give.

dcpetterson @37, truly informed comment on UAH v6 will have to await release of the code and examination by experts (of which I am not one). Several of Spencer's graphs stood out to me, however, as allowing some form of preliminary assessment of the difference between v5.6 and v6.

Of these, the most important is that showing weights by altitude:

Because satellite data does not come from just one layer, satellite temperature products show the weighted average of temperature data from different altitudes. Because of their new method, UAH v6 gives a much lower weight to near surface temperatures and a higher weight to (cooling) lower stratosphere temperatures. This is partially balanced by an increased weight to warmer upper tropospheric temperatures (can any body say "upper tropospheric hotspot"). Spencer says this cools the record by " less than 0.01 C/decade". As the difference between v 5.6 and v 6 trends is 0.026 C/decade, that represents about a third of the difference just by changing the weighting profile.

Also of interest is the chart of trends by zone:

Ignoring the inappropriate use of a line chart rather than a bar chart, what stands out is the huge reduction in Arctic temperature trends. The other note worthy cool changes in the record are, in order of magnitude, the NH north of the Tropic of Cancer (NExtraT), the USA 49, the USA 48, and the NH. Clearly almost the entire change comes from high latitude NH temperatures. That is clearly inconsistent with surface temperature records by GISS, or DMI:

It also does not pass the smell test in relationship to changes in Arctic ice (sea ice, glaciers and ice sheets).

If you look at the excluded satellites, that means that from late 1998 to mid 2003, NOAA 14 was the only satellite from which Spencer and Christy would accept data. Curiously, a general warming trend of UAH v6 relative to UAH v5.6 reverses in 1998, and flattens out in 2005 (ie, the onset of NOAA 18). That is a noteworthy coincidence at least, and suggest their diurnal temperature correction has problems. Whether it does or not, of course, can only be answered by detailed analysis which I am unable to provide.

Tom Curtis - "...truly informed comment on UAH v6 will have to await release of the code and examination by experts..."

Of course, Christy and Spencer have never released their code or algorithms (unlike the other temperature records). Making such examination difficult in the extreme. External corrections have come from various groups reconstructing the UAH record without assistance from UAH, discuvering where they may have gone wrong, and then after some (often considerable) period of time the UAH group has updated their results.

It's been 26 years so far, and the UAH group has yet to release their methods. I don't expect that to change any time soon.

KR @41, it has emerged lately that Spencer and Christy have revealed their code here (under Mean Layer Temperatures - UAH). William Connelley recently bloged about it. Apparently Eli mentioned it in 2013, but Spencer and Christy have certainly not advertised it.

Although from Connelley's report it seems to be rather horrifying (gah!) from a software perspective, with code changes and recompilation needed every month due to fixed arrays that have to be resized for each additional data point, huge chunks of code commented out or unreachable due to gotos and program logic, etc.

I suspect the most useful part of that information will be the algorithm description, which should permit cross-checking by other investigators, for example Po-Chedley and Fu (relevant 2012 article on UAH reconstructions here). I hope they'll put out an update that includes the V6 changes - the linked documentation refers to multi-view angle data, which has been abandoned in favor of multi-channel data for the computation of lower troposphere temperatures.

I'm not entirely certain how comparable the 5.6 and 6.0 UAH versions are as a result of those method changes.

I'm also curious to see if the new version of UAH temperatures has a significant effect on the Cowtan and Way temperature reconstruction - the changes in the UAH V6 Arctic temperature trend (by a factor of almost 2) is quite significant.

David Arthur @ 17 "Water molecules absorb sensible energy at the surface when they evaporate, and re-release that energy at whatever tropospheric height when they re-condense. That is, intensification of the water cycle results in energy "bypassing" tropospheric greenhouse gases as it departs earth." is incorrect per the following table. Note that the *current* increasing greenhouse gas effect is mostly above the point at which 90% of water vapour resides (<~4km altitude) so there's lots of that +CO2 at 4km-~16km altitude to send some radiation back down. (the tabs didn't work out, figure it out yourself):

Can anyone estimate when the RSS data is likely to show peak reaction to the current El Nino?

So far as I can tell, during the '98 event SST's peaked in around Nov/Dec 97 and RSS peaked around March/April. To judge from the current (9th Oct) very strong WWB west of the dateline this event is not going to peak until around Dec/Jan. So am I right in assuming that the RSS data is likely to break the '98 peak temperature record sometime around April 2016?

I'm curious as to how the denial industry will spin a new record high temperature on the RSS graph.

They'll just start a new "pause" in 2015, no worries. It's not like their audience is critical anyway. You can say anything to someone who wants to believe a certain way, as long as it goes that way, no matter how unreal.

Jos Hagelaars. "Klotzbach Revisited," explaining briefly the expected relationship between the surface temperature and the lower troposphere temperature, the uncertainties about that, and the issues with the satellite measurements